What is Alfalab?

Alfalab is a project of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), which applies and promotes use of digital tools and methods in humanities research, and fosters cooperation of humanities researchers at national and international levels.

Alfalab is part of the KNAW’s strategy of supporting humanities research in general and digital and computational humanities in particular. In August 2008, the KNAW Board accepted the Alfalab project proposal, and the project has been formally launched on March 1, 2009.

Alfalab’s first phase will last until March 1, 2011 and it will involve the following KNAW institutes:

Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS)
Fryske Akademy
The Huygens Instituut
Meertens Instituut
Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS)

As a collaborative project, Alfalab will pursue collaboration at all levels:
• among organizations and people developing Alfalab;
• among national and international institutions and researchers;
• among academic disciplines and research fields;
• among actors involved in digital humanities, whether as users, developers, or decision-makers.